Without a Trace
by WinnieTherPooh
Summary: After the Monolith refuses to take him to Jemma (3x01), Leo Fitz visits a bar to drown his problems without considering the enemies he (and SHIELD) have made. Everything about him seems to have disappeared without a trace. AU after 3x01
1. Alone

**A/N: As you may have noticed, if you've been here before, I'm currently in the process of re-writing this for clarity and to expand the ideas more. I'm also planning on adding more to the end. Please leave a review to let me know what you think! (Rewritten 7/25/17)**

Alistair Fitz had had a habit. When anything went wrong-anything- he would go to the bar and drink until he could barely think. Sometimes he would stumble home, sometimes a buddy would drop him off, sometimes a cab showed up, and sometimes he didn't go home. His son, Leopold Fitz, had hated it. Hated the fears that came with it- would his dad come home at all? Or would he be drunk and angry and looking for a fight?

Either way, he had sworn never to get drunk, never to lose control like that if he could help it.

But after the monolith? After the insult, the spit in the face of the evil thing- there was nothing left to do. It wouldn't take him back to Jemma, and life didn't seem possible without Jemma. Maybe, just maybe, if he drank enough, he would see her. Maybe he could find the solace that his dad had seemed to find at the bar.

Coulson didn't deny his request to leave the base for a drink. In fact, he encouraged it, even offered him some cash for it. He seemed to think that this was a sign that Fitz was "getting over it." How was Fitz supposed to "get over" this? How could he possibly move on from his best friend of over a decade? A single night of bloody drinking wasn't going to fix that. What the bloody hell did Coulson think a drink was going to fix?

Walking into the bar was the hardest part of following in his dad's footsteps. He stood outside on the sidewalk, pacing back and forth. As much as he wanted to push away his memories of his dad, of the drinking, he had let the influence creep in. After all, here he was, in front of a bar, with the money and intention of getting so drunk he couldn't walk straight. Fitz turned around, staring up at the blinking security camera on the spotlight. "What the hell are you looking at?" He asked, shoving his hands into his pockets and pacing again. Funny, thinking over his dad wasn't quite as difficult as it had been before all of this. Jemma made pain feel relative. It was like he could still hear his dad's voice in his head sometimes. _Can't even get drunk. Not even gutsy enough to go for a drink. You can't do anything decisively, can you, boy? And you call yourself my son._

Fitz went into the bar.

He struggled again with actually drinking the damn thing. He had asked for whatever was strong, didn't know what was in it, but that didn't matter. He knew getting drunk wasn't rational, or logical, or what Jemma would have wanted him to do, but that didn't matter anymore. There wasn't a rational explanation for what had happened to Jemma. It wasn't logical that she could have just disappeared into it. Jemma would have wanted him to keep looking, but Coulson wouldn't even let him do that. He had wanted to analyze the dust he had found off the rock, but Coulson had revoked his lab access. He had nothing left anymore, except to do what his dad had always done. Sitting at the bar, he stared at the drink. Could he really do this? Let himself down, let his team down?

His team could live without him, he knew that. They barely even knew he existed anymore. Bobbi and Hunter, Daisy and Mack. They were the team. And then there's Fitz. The afterthought. The screwup. The disabled one. He downed the drink in one shot.

He stared down at the empty glass, wondering if they'd even noticed his absence. Probably not. They were getting along just fine without Jemma now, weren't they? Didn't even notice how much it had hurt him that she was gone. They didn't care. The bartender gave him a refill, and asked about his keys. He had walked to the bar.

It was all about the Inhumans now. Inhumans everything. They were so focused on the people the team helped that they were forgetting that some of the people on the team needed help too.

Mack called him "buddy" like a child. Mack was supposed to be better than that. Mack was supposed to be one of the good ones who didn't treat him differently. Like Daisy- hadn't he been there for her when she needed help the most? And now she was chumming with Mack, and both of them had forgotten him. He let the bartender refill his glass for a third drink.

Hunter- it was all Bobbi now. And of course, that was logical. In this whole screwed up, illogical mess, that made sense. He would have at least thought that Hunter cared a little bit. Bobbi herself took Jemma's place in the lab, messing up their systems and replacing her. They couldn't just replace Jemma. Jemma was special. And gone. Another drink.

Mack was doing the engineering work again, just like he had after the brain thing. And in that situation, who could blame Leo for searching after Jemma? Maybe it was a waste of time, but he had nothing else to do. They obviously didn't need him for anything.

In their eyes, he was still damaged, still useless to them, that's how they felt, Leo knew. He had seen the look in Bobbi's eyes. She thought he had lost it. Again. He had lost it again. No wonder Jemma was gone again. And, of course, that was his fault too. Loosening the latch, blowing up the pod, every time he got close enough to her to say something, to dare to talk to her, he screwed it up.

He had begun to notice the tremor again. Staring down at his hand in the dimly lit bar, he watched it until he could see the shake. Fitz squeezed his fingers into a fist, ending the involuntary action, and ordered another drink. The bartender gave him a look.

"You okay, dude? Are you sure you can handle another of these?"

"I'm Scottish." Fitz said, "Just give me the damn drink." Who was he, the pasty, spiky haired hoodlum to question his ability to drink. Like father, like son.

After that encounter and drink, it felt like time to go home. The bartender asked if he wanted a cab, but that would have exposed the base. He walked. Fitz began walking back to his access point for the base. He was a Scot. He could hold his drink. He was paying perfect attention to everything around him. Nobody would sneak up on him.

Kidnapping him couldn't have been easier. After all, a person is weakest when they are all alone.


	2. You'll Say Yes

He didn't know how long it had been when his captors ripped the bag off of his head. He blinked, adjusting to the light and the pain in his head. They must have drugged him. Jemma would have been able to tell him right away, told him to describe the symptoms, and wait a second they were talking.

"You got away from us once, but it won't be happening again."

Yusef Hadad.

Fitz looked up at him. "What do you want with me now? I told you, I don't care if you kill me."

"We want you to fulfill your end of the deal." Yusef told him, staring down at the engineer, sitting on a chair with his hands zip tied behind him. He held up the malfunctioning splinter bombs. "You build us these, so that they work."

"Never." Fitz said, his eyes narrowing. "I would never put a weapon like that into your hands."

"You don't have a choice."

"But what if I say no?"

Yusef chuckled. "Believe me. You'll say yes, sooner or later. You'll say yes.

If Leo Fitz's heart hadn't been in a million pieces, it would have dropped to the bottom of his stomach.


	3. Waiting for SHIELD

**(A/N I don't own Marvel, sadly, and therefore I don't own the characters in this. However, I do own the story itself, so please don't steal it. Please R &R! Review mean a lot.)**

Wherever Yusef Hadad was keeping him, SHIELD should have been able to find him within hours of his disappearance. So Fitz didn't understand why somebody didn't come.

Yusef was keeping him in a basement somewhere. He could see that it was made of cinder blocks, but there was some tech in the handcuffs they kept on him that wouldn't let him get close to the walls. A good thing for Yusef, because he would have found a way out.

For three days, as Fitz judged it, Yusef came downstairs daily, asking him to rebuild the splinter bombs so that they were functional.

For three days, Fitz refused. On the fourth day, Yusef began beating him. By the fifth day, he could barely see out of his left eye, and the taste of blood in his mouth wouldn't go away.

And still, SHIELD didn't come.

He began to wonder if they had even noticed his disappearance. After all, Inhumans were the focus right now, and he was only Fitz. They were so used to him being gone, looking for a lead on Simmons, that his absence now wouldn't even be a topic of discussion.

Leo found that his despair was worse than the pain.


	4. On a Lead

**(A/N: I know these chapters are short, and I apologize. They should get longer as I find out more about the story. Thank you for all the follows. Please R &R!)**

"By the way, has anyone seen Fitz?" Coulson asked the team.

"I haven't seen him since Tuesday night." Bobbi said. "When he attacked the monolith. Maybe he found another lead."

"I told him to lay off of it." Coulson said, sighing. "I don't know what to do with him. He's deteriorating without Jemma. Maybe we should get a psychiatrist for him."

"He just needs more time." Daisy said. "When he gets back, I'll talk to him. I owe him that."

"Bobbi, have you heard from him? You keep in touch with him more than anybody. Doesn't he tell you where he's going?"

"Not usually. I just call him and tell him to come back. I don't know where he went last week."

"He looked shaken up." Coulson remarked. "We should keep a closer eye on him."

Hunter said nothing, but made a personal resolution to keep up with Fitz. He had been so caught up with Bobbi that he had neglected him.


	5. Yusef calls in a Favor

"I've told you a thousand times, and I'll tell you again, I'm not going to be building anything for you." Fitz bit through the pained fog his mind was in, staring up at Yusef. "And nothing's going to change my mind."

"Nothing?" Yusef laughed. "You know, he told me that we didn't have the resources to change your mind. Tried to get me to share with him, but I said no, we would get what we wanted, and then pass you on. But I'll call in a favor."

"With who?" Fitz asked, as Yusef strode towards the door.

"Hydra has always had better resources." His captor answered over his shoulder. "I'm sure Agent Ward will know what to do."

Ward's voice was the first thing Fitz heard when he regained consciousness. They had knocked him out with a sleeper gas, something that had made his head cloud up even more, and moved him somewhere different. Now he was in a different cell, one that reminded him of Vault D, except scarier, because he was the person trapped inside. And Ward was the person outside.

"It's really easy to control, Hadad." Ward was telling Yusef how to work the controls of the cell, Fitz realized as he pushed himself up against the wall. "I'd be happy to show you what will work best in this situation. Agent Fitz once had a traumatic experience with water. He lost oxygen. It would be terrible for him to go through that again." And now he looked up at Fitz. "Oh, he's awake. Hello, Fitz."

Fitz almost threw up.

 **(A/N: And here comes Ward. I hadn't planned on bringing him in, but Yusef wasn't going anywhere, and it would make sense that he had Hydra ties. And with Ward the new head of Hydra, it made sense. Please please please R &R!)**


	6. How Cruel

**A/N: Thank you for all the follows and reviews! Keep it up, it keeps the story going. =D**

How cruel does a man have to make somebody walk through hell again?

Fitz could see the answer in front of him. Ward could be that cruel. "You have a choice, Fitz. You can give my friend Yusef what he wants, or..." he glanced at the controls. "You know."

"I'm not going to give _Yusef_ the ability to destroy a human like that."

"What would Simmons say if you died?" Ward asked, casually picking up the ipad. "I bet that would be really hard on her."

"Simmons is g-" All of a sudden, he realized what Ward was doing. "Ward! Ward!"

Ward looked up, watching the oxygen level slowly go down in Fitz's cell.

"I know you care about the team, Ward. You said it yourself, how can you be doing this?"

Ward watched as Fitz pounded against the wall, screaming at Ward. "Deja vu." He remarked, sitting down to wait.


	7. Shaking

**A/N: Thank you for all the follows and reviews! Based on a review, I'm trying to give my story more depth and description. Please leave reviews with suggestions for improvement! I want to know how to make the story better!**

Ward stood with his arms crossed, watching Fitz's reaction to the slowly dropping oxygen. Fitz's curly hair was drenched with sweat as he screamed for Ward to stop. His face impassive, he noticed that the screams were getting more hoarse as Fitz began gasping to breath the thinning air. "Having a hard time breathing, Fitz? Are you ready to listen to me?"

Getting down on his heels on the floor in front of Fitz, Ward began to explain. "My friend Yusef wants the splinter bomb. You're going to build that for him, or we're going to keep up this game we're playing with the oxygen."

"How could you?" Fitz gasped out, trying to grasp the dark evil in Ward's face. "How could you do this to me again?"

"Yusef is my partner, Fitz." Ward stood up. "He's my team. How could I not?" With a quick movement, he readjusted the oxygen. "I'll give you a little while to think about it."

When he was able to breath normally again, Fitz found that he couldn't stand very well, probably a result of the energy he had used screaming at Ward. He scooted back against the wall of the cell, resting his head against it as he began crying.

He tried to wipe his face off, but his hand was shaking too much. Almost instinctively, his hand slipped up to his shoulder. "Yeah, Simmons, I know that it's re-exposure to a situation causing the results of the situation to come back." He closed his eyes, the tears continuing to seep out, without him able to control them. "I only have to hold out a little longer, and then they'll come, my team's going to come. I know, Simmons, it's been a while, but they'll find where I am." He fell asleep talking to Simmons, his shaking hand still resting on his shoulder.


	8. Not Normal

**A/N: Well, here is a longer chapter for all my followers (21! I'm BLOWN AWAY)**

 **Please R &R! I'm planning on updating this story on Tuesdays and Thursdays, with random days when I feel like writing this story (like today)**

"Bobbi, I know you've been covering for Fitz in the past." Coulson didn't stop for formalities as he came into the lab, jacket swinging over his arm. "But I need to know where he is, now."

Bobbi spun around, her hair flying back over her shoulder. "Geez, you nearly gave me a heart attack." She rubbed her knee for a second. "Probably shouldn't have spun around so fast."

"I'm sorry." Coulson apologized. "But Fitz hasn't been gone this long in a while. It's been almost 10 days since I've heard from him. I thought you might know more, considering what you've covered up for him in the past."

"I haven't heard from Fitz since he went to Morocco." Bobbi told Coulson honestly. "I know he was going to get a drink after we pulled him off the monolith. I haven't seen him since. Maybe he-"

"Left SHIELD? But he knows that the monolith is the only way of getting Simmons back." Coulson frowned. "This isn't normal. I'm going to ask Daisy if she knows anything about this."

"What about me?" Daisy had just come in behind Coulson. "Sir, Dr. Garner gave us another assessment on Joey, and-"

"Not now, Daisy. Nobody's seen Fitz for ten days, and I'm worried about him. Have you heard anything?"

"Fitz and I don't talk much. With all due respect, sir, is this really a priority? Fitz might have just decided to take a break after he broke into the monolith. His behavior hasn't been steady since Simmons left, since his accident, really. I don't think we should be worrying too much about-"

"He's part of our team, Daisy. We're not just going to brush off a 10 day absence because he's had erratic behavior in the past few months. If anything we should be looking for him even more." Coulson said. "We'll talk later about Joey." Pushing past her, Coulson strode to his office, his face agitated.

Daisy threw up her hands. "I can't believe it. _Everything_ we've been doing the past 5 months has lead up to us finally extracting Joey, and he doesn't even want to hear about it because Fitz took a few days off?"

"Are you talking to me?" Bobbi asked, from where she had begun work again at her lab station. "Because I have several things I could say about that."

"If it's anything like Coulson just said, I'm probably good." Daisy said, storming out of the lab.

 _"I know they'll come, Simmons. It's just going to take time for them to find me. It'll be any time now."_ Fitz was talking in his sleep, a sleep that was rudely awakened by two of Yusef's men pulling him up by his arms.

"Come on, now. The bosses want to see you."


	9. The Real Reason

**A/N: So here is another chapter from the Fitz side of the sphere. On Thursday (or tomorrow, depending how I feel after the episode), we'll be hearing again from the SHIELD team. Please R &R!**

"Mr. _Fitz_." Yusef tossed the case of faulty splinter bombs on the floor in front of him. "I'm going to give you another chance to repair these for me."

"Why me? Hydra has the technology to build them anyway. Why do you need me?" Fitz finally voiced what he had been wondering about for several days now.

"Because I know Coulson." Fitz tried to turn his head to hear where Ward's voice was coming from, but the thugs holding kept him facing Yusef. "And Coulson's not the person to leave one of his own people in a nasty situation like this."

"Coulson won't walk into a trap. He doesn't even know where we are." Fitz returned, not even fully aware of what he was saying until Ward replied.

"You don't really think that." Ward finally walked into Fitz's vision, and there was a strange relief in that. "You're still holding on to some hope that you'll be rescued because otherwise you would have agreed to make the bombs for my friend Yusef." It was strange how well Ward could tell what Fitz had been thinking.

"They think I'm useless. Why would they come rescue me?" Fitz asked, his voice choking a little. He could feel his hand shaking a little, and an all too familiar cloud fogging over his brain.

"Because you're part of Coulson's team, and Coulson is all about the team." Ward gave a wry laugh. "At least, that's what we're planning on. Do you want to send a message?" Ward held up his phone. "I can record anything you want me to."

"Why would I want to help you, uh, help you, uh trap? Why would I want to help you trap my friends?" Fitz asked, trying desperately to recall words to his brain. "What do you want with Coulson anyway? Are you just going to, uh, kill him?"

"It's not Coulson I'm interested in. It's his team." Fitz couldn't think of why he was hearing a hint of sadness in Ward's voice. He tried to remember what Ward had against the team.

"This is about SHIELD?" Yusef asked, speaking for the first time. "I thought this was about my bombs."

"And it is, Yusef." Ward said smoothly. "I'll have somebody supply you with more. Let me deal with Fitz from now on." After Yusef and his men left, Ward turned back to Fitz, now the only other person in the room. "Purely practical reasons."

"Like what?" Fitz challenged him. "Are you going to have your scientists experiment on Daisy, or are you just going to kill her? I'm not going to let that happen. I'm not going to let you hurt any of them."

"You're hardly in the position to stop me." Ward laughed. "Just look what 2 minutes with decreased oxygen did to you. You're barely holding it together, Fitz. I can see how you're losing words, you're hand's shaking. You were talking to Simmons. Imagine what a longer amount of time would do to you! You're not in the position to fight me, Fitz."

Fitz's eyes were filling with tears again, as he struggled to keep himself from crying again. "I'm not going to let you."

"Oh, Fitz. I don't need you to let me." Ward shook his head, laughing a little. "Kebo? Let's get Fitz camera ready."


	10. A Message to SHIELD

**A/N: Please rate and review! I really appreciate it. =D**

"We have to get him back. No question about it." Hunter insisted as the remaining team members met in Coulson's office to discuss the situation.

"Get him back from where?" Mack asked. "I'm inclined to agree with Daisy. Maybe he just took a break."

"Then we need to find out where he is all the same!" Hunter argued. "Fitz isn't the kind to just leave without a trace. We need to find out where he is."

Mack was about to reply, but the sound of static from Coulson's screen drew attention from all of them. It took a second for the video to pull into focus, and even then, it was blurry. The slumped figure in the chair in front of them was unmistakable. "It's Fitz." Hunter yelled, as Coulson began the recording device. "Is somebody tracking this?"

"On it." Daisy said, already sitting at Coulson's computer and typing away. The rest of the team stared with disbelieving eyes at the scene unfolding.

"Greetings, Director Coulson. My name is Yusef Hadad. He warned me against giving you the name, but then he also said that you would be able to find me anyway. You might as well know who your enemy is. I would send you a message from your agent, but he's not exactly in the mood for talking." A coarse laugh came from the man, who beckoned for the camera to move over Fitz's limp body.

The entire group sat in stunned silence. Even through the bad quality of the feed, they could see the bruises on his face, and the cut that had left a streak of dried blood down his cheek. "Got it. He's in Morocco." Daisy said, standing up to watch the feed. The color drained from her face as she realized the seriousness of the situation. "What are they doing to him?"

Almost immediately, Yusef came back onto the camera, answering her question with perfect timing. "You can see that he's not exactly in ideal condition, and I can assure you, it will only grow worse unless I am provided with exactly what I ask for. I want a full supply of the most state of the art weaponry, and yes, a whole case of those beautiful splinter bombs that Agent _Fitz_ cheated me on. I'll expect them in 24 hours. I know how fast SHIELD can move. If not..." The camera flashed back to face for a second, and then the video ended.

There was no sound for a full minute, as everybody processed the news they had just received. Coulson spoke first. "Daisy, where are we going?"

"It's an old warehouse in Morocco. Yusef Hadad is a gang lord, very powerful and feared." Daisy said, returning to the computer to read off what she had found.

"Shouldn't be a problem." Mack put in. "We've dealt with worse."

"I have exact coordinates. We can be there in 5 hours."

"We're walking into a trap. Hydra's there." Coulson said, staring at the blank screen in front of them.

"We have to get Fitz back." Bobbi insisted. "There's no question of that."

"Of course there isn't." Coulson said. "We just have to know how to prepare to deal with Hydra, when they know we're coming."

"How do you know it's Hydra?" Daisy asked. "It could just be a Moroccan gang lord with a hacker for hire."

"How would they know where to find our lines?" Coulson asked in response. "They have to have somebody who knows what they're dealing with." A silence fell over the room as the team realized who Coulson was talking about.

"You mean Ward's doing this." Hunter said. It wasn't a question.


	11. Moving

**A/N: I apologize for my absence, but school got crazy this past week. Hopefully I'll be updating more frequently now.**

 _They'll come for you, Fitz. You'll see._ ** _I know, Simmons, I know they'll come. But I'm losing hope._**

"We sent them a video. They're going to come and then you'll get to watch as we kill them all. Thanks for looking good on camera." Ward stood in front of him, breaking him out of his conversation with Simmons. "Great job, Fitz. It was about time that you gave up on them."

Fitz's blue eyes filled with tears. "I didn't..." He sought to remember the words that Ward had used "I didn't give up on them. They'll come, and you're going to pay for what you've done."

"That's a nice idea, but it's not going to happen." Ward laughed. "Yusef demanded guns and weaponry as a ransom, but SHIELD doesn't negotiate. They'll be here in a few hours."

"It's not like you to get beaten so easily."

"You're right. That's why I killed Yusef." Ward told him. "We're leaving right before they get here."

"You killed Yusef." Fitz couldn't remember why that would be important. "Why won't you leave now?"

"Because I enjoy the thrill of the chase." Ward laughed. "We could make another video for them. You did so well in the last one."

"Stop. Stop talking." Fitz wanted to cover his ears, but his hands were handcuffed to the chair behind him, and he couldn't. "I don't want to hear your lies."

"Then let me tell you the truth of what's going to happen. They'll come. They'll come straight into a trap because Coulson is all about the team. And you can't do anything about it, Fitz. I'm going to win this time."

Fitz looked up at him. "You're never going to win." A tear trickled down his face, cutting through the grime and blood. "They'll beat you."

Kebo entered the room. "Sir? We need to move."

"Okay. Let's leave a message and keep going." Ward said, bending down to release Fitz from the chair. "Meet me at the van."

 _Forty Minutes_

"Sir? We just found the body of Yusef Hadad." Daisy reported to Coulson. "It appears that Ward killed him before leaving."

"So Ward is gone." Coulson's face was frustrated. "Any sign of Fitz?"

Before Daisy could answer, Mack's voice came over the comms. "Director Coulson? Agent Morse and I found something that you'll want to see."

In the basement of the warehouse, Bobbi was examining a metal chair in the middle of the room. "I'm fairly certain that this is where they took the footage of Fitz. There's fresh blood on the back of it. They must have left only a few minutes ago."

Mack was scanning the room with a DWARF, when he gave a shout of triumph. "There's a camera."

Coulson moved over to where Mack was examining a cheap camera. "They left this here on purpose. They want us to see whatever is on here."


	12. Reactions

**A/N: Life is crazy, and updates are moving slower. But here you go. It's a shorter chapter, but the next one will be much longer, I promise. Thanks for sticking around with me! Please leave a review!**

"Daisy, I want eyes everywhere. Find out what vehicle Ward is in, where he is going, and how we can get to him." Coulson didn't take his own eyes off of the screen, watching as Ward taunted Fitz, had Kebo beat him, doing everything to break him. "He hasn't given up on us yet."

"But we gave up on him." Daisy said, pressing her hand over her mouth to keep herself from crying. "I said that he was probably just taking a break. I didn't do anything, didn't even think that he might kidnapped. This is my-"

"Stop it. This is not your fault, Daisy, this is the fault of the team. Especially of me, the team leader." Coulson snapped. "Now you get me eyes everywhere. Ward wants us to know that we're walking into a trap. So be it. We'll walk in, and we'll outwit him at his own game. Understand?"

"Yes sir." Daisy began hacking the city cameras, finally locating a beat up cargo van heading for the edge of town.

"Bobbi, get ready for meds. He's going to need a lot of attention." As the team suited up, Coulson watched the final minutes of the video. Fitz was screaming for Ward to stop, yet every time he did stop, refused to give up the hope that Coulson would be here soon. And he always refused to work for Ward.

"Hang in there, Fitz. We're coming." Coulson jumped as Hunter spoke from right behind him.

"He's stopped." Daisy announced. "They're at another warehouse, about fifteen minutes from here driving time."

"Then let's go get started with Ward's trap." Coulson said, loading his pistol."


	13. A Final Countdown

**A/N: I was a bit hesitant about this chapter, and about this story in general. Mainly, I didn't think that Ward could actually be this messed up and do this to Fitz. However, after watching 3x09, yes, he could. So I've decided to carry on. To clarify, when I say wall x-ray, I mean the thing that Ward and Fitz put on the wall in The Hub episode. Please review!**

"Where did Simmons go? Did she get tired of babysitting you again?" Ward taunted, setting up his cameras and wall x-rays for Coulson's arrival.

Fitz was sitting on the floor, back against the wall, trying to get a breath. "No, it- it- it wasn't like that." He tried to explain. The words weren't coming. Every breath felt like he was being stabbed in the chest, and the result was the familiar sensation of choking. It had come up before, when he was still struggling a lot with his hypoxia. It sometimes came up when he was scared. That panicky, asphyxiating feeling, combined with the broken rib that he thought he had, was making every word harder and harder to say. "Simmons doesn't babysit me."

"Really? Because it sure looks like that. I mean, you still can't talk normally." Ward pointed out. "You've been talking to yourself, and when you talk to us, you don't get your words out. No wonder she gave up on you again. Did you ever get up the guts to talk to her?"

"She didn't give up on me." It was getting hard to ignore the pounding in his head. Fitz knew that he shouldn't believe a word that Ward said, and he knew what had happened to Simmons, but Ward's words reinstalled the seed of doubt. Doubt that Jemma had really meant what she said before she was sucked up by the alien rock.

"Everyone's given up on you." Ward countered. "You're useless to them."

"They're coming now. They haven't- given up on me."

"They're coming for me, not for you. But it doesn't matter. You'll still get to watch them die."

"I'll warn them." Fitz buried his head in his hands for a moment, before pulling it back up. "I'm going to warn them."

"After everything they haven't done for you? You're going to get killed to keep them safe? I _will_ shoot you if you make a sound."

"I-I won't let you kill my friends."

Pulling out a roll of duct tape, Ward firmly covered Fitz's mouth, before pulling his hands behind his back and duct taping them together as well. "But just to be safe." Looking up, he suddenly saw the forms of people coming down the stairs. Moving behind one of the crates in the warehouse, he loaded his gun. The first person was Coulson, no doubt about it. And the second one was Daisy, and after that he didn't care.

They were coming down the hallway, rounding the corner. Ward sighted at the door, ready for the shot it would take to end Coulson once and for all. Fitz was struggling, his breaths getting shorter and shorter as he tried to suck in oxygen through his nose instead. And then he remembered how to get it off of his mouth. They were seconds away, ready to shoot out the lock of the door. The tape fell off, and Fitz mustered every breath in his body to warn them. He knew there was another name he was supposed to use, but he couldn't think of it, and there was no time. "SKYE!" He screamed.

Outside of the room, Daisy and Coulson pulled back. Behind them, Hunter, Mack and May halted as well. Three shots fired inside. There was an agonized scream, a scream that pushed Daisy over the line. The door was destroyed in a second. A distracted Ward shot at her, hitting her shoulder. It didn't slow her down as she directed a blast towards him, sending him into the wall.

Her shoulder was bleeding, but she barely noticed. All her attention was on the bleeding body on the floor.


	14. Safe not Sound

Daisy and Bobbi were kneeling beside Fitz's body, Bobbi desperately trying to stop the bleeding coming from his leg and stomach. Daisy tried to keep Fitz conscious, worried that if he went out he might not come back. "Fitz? Stay with me Fitz." His eyes were open, but they were dull and glassy. Daisy tried not to compare them to the brilliant blue she was used to. "Keep your eyes on me, okay? We're going to get you out of here."

She gently removed the duct tape from the rest of his mouth, but was horrified to see the blood staining it. A dribble of blood was coming out of his mouth, staining his abnormally pale skin. Daisy closed her eyes for a second, her mind flashing back to two years earlier. Quinn had just shot her. She knew the pain Fitz must be in. But there was no time for recollections. Opening her eyes, she saw Fitz's eyes sliding shut. "No, Fitz, stay with me. Stay awake, Fitz."

"Help me." He choked out, his cough bringing up more blood.

Daisy blinked back her tears. "I'm going to help you Fitz. You can make it through this." He gasped for air, his eyes wide with the pain. "You just have to stay with me, okay?

Bobbi interrupted. "Help me lift him up. Be careful."

Hunter gently slid his hands under Fitz's back, helping them lift him onto the stretcher, and then lift the stretcher into the gurney.

Daisy's blast had stunned Ward, but Mack had him on his feet now, officially arresting him. "I think he broke his collarbone, sir. There might be more injuries that I'm not aware of yet." Mack reported, as he handcuffed Ward.

"We can deal with that when we get back to the playground. Give him some painkiller once we're on the plane, but Bobbi can't help him right now." Coulson ordered. "Don't let May get near him. She'd probably kill him."

"I'm pretty close to killing him myself." Mack snorted. "Come on." He pushed Ward in front of him, out of the storage room.

"Sir! We need to get out of here. If we don't get Fitz back home soon, we'll lose him." Bobbi reported, having finished gently strapping him to the stretcher.

"Let's move."

The plane was moving quickly across the Atlantic Ocean, while the team stood in a stunned silence while Bobbi tried to stabilize Fitz. He was still conscious, but drowsy from the painkillers she was pumping into him.

Daisy took his hand, letting him feel her presence. "You're going to be okay, Fitz. We're all here, we're going to make sure that you're okay."

"Yeah, mate. You're going to be fine." Hunter agreed, before turning and leaving the room as quickly as he could. Finding the nearest sink, he began violently scrubbing his hands, trying to remove all the stains of Fitz's blood from them. Finally, he slammed the water off, staring up at the wall. "I'm going to kill the bloody-" He trailed off, drying his hands.

"Hunter!" It was Coulson, who was standing at the door. "What's going on?"

"Nothing." Hunter lied, feeling the pistol in his belt close against his hip. Waiting for him to grab it, waiting for him to end Ward.


	15. Failed

**A/N: Thank you for sticking with me all the way to the end of 2015! My New Years resolution is more frequent updates!**

 **Also, I'm aware that the last part of this chapter is a bit rambling and that is intentional.**

 **Please review! It keeps me writing.**

"Killing Ward won't help Fitz, Hunter." Coulson said, gesturing towards the gun on Hunter's belt.

"What do you mean?" Hunter tried to cover for himself by feigning surprise. "I'm not planning on killing Ward."

"I can read you as easily as I can read a book. You were about to go into the cage and kill Ward." Coulson said, not leaving any room for argument. "It's not like I blame you. But we're not going to do that." Coulson sighed. "Ward might have killed-" He instantly corrected himself. Fitz wasn't dead yet, not by a long shot. "Ward might have tried to kill a helpless man, but if we killed him right now, we'd be no better. Killing him won't make Fitz better, and it won't make us feel better either."

"Yeah, speak for yourself. I'm not so sure about that." Hunter said dryly. "I should have killed him already for what he did to Bobbi, not even to mention that he tortured Fitz for days, and then shot him down in front of us. He's a monster, Coulson, and every time we give him another chance to live, he turns around and spits in our faces."

"You're right. This one is on me. I'm the one who let him go, and if you want to blame anybody for this, it's me. I failed to protect Bobbi, I failed to protect Fitz. I'm not going to give him another chance to turn on us. He's not leaving Vault D ever again, but I'm not going to kill him. That makes us no better than the bad guys, Hunter, you have to see that." Coulson was about to add more, but May's voice came in over the speaker lines.

"We're approaching the Playground. Prepare for landing."

"Thanks, May." Coulson turned to leave Hunter, but had one final remark. "I don't want anybody touching Ward until I've talked to him. And if I get off this plane and find out that he's dead, I'll know who did it."

"Not much you could do about it at that point." Hunter commented. He knew Coulson was right, but he wasn't about to let him know that.

"There's better ways for you to help Fitz." Coulson ended the conversation, heading back to where Bobbi and Daisy had Fitz.

Fitz was hovering on the edge of consciousness. All he was really aware of was pain. A burning, driving pain ripping through every inch of his body. It was nothing like the pain he had gone through in the last few weeks. That was a familiar pain. That pain was still there, but it was a low hum under the roar of pain washing over him now. Through the fog in his mind, he heard Skye, no it was Daisy, Daisy's voice speaking to him.

"Come on Fitz, stay with us. Don't give up on us now, you're so close."

 _But you gave up on me. If you had come, this wouldn't be_ _happening._

 _Was that Bobbi there? He thought it was her trying to help him, hooking up IVs maybe, things that Simmons used to do. It reminded him of the time that Skye had been shot, and Simmons was trying to help her. So Simmons hadn't come back with them. Simmons hadn't come with them. She wasn't there, helping him. Simmons had given up on him, and she hadn't come back with the team._

 _Simmons wasn't going to come, silly boy. She was gone, sucked into the monolith. That's what had gotten him into this mess, hadn't it? Simmons. But she wasn't here now, after all of this, he still hadn't gotten her back._

 _He had failed again._

 _He closed his eyes tightly. He couldn't think about this anymore. There was too much pain._


	16. Purpose

"Landing in five minutes." May announced throughout the plane. "They have a med team ready to take Fitz."

"Daisy, you should come with us and I can see about your shoulder." Bobbi instructed her. "Fitz? Are you still with us?"

Fitz's eyes snapped open.

"Okay, we're about to land, and then we're going to take you into surgery and fix this. Got it?" Bobbi explained. "We're going to be right here with you, don't worry."

 _Right beside me the whole damn time_. Fitz nodded his head slightly, as far as he could go without hurting himself.

"Great." Bobbi said, patting his hand. "We're almost there."

He didn't like the idea of getting knocked out for surgery. He couldn't argue, he knew it needed to be done, or it would hurt even more, but he didn't want to fall into darkness. The idea of it was making him scared, just thinking about being asleep. It reminded him of the nine days he had spent in darkness, where it had felt like hours, but he had woken up with days gone. He didn't want to sleep. The doctors were explaining something to him, something he didn't understand, or care about. "Now count to ten, and think happy thoughts."

Idiots. His heart was pounding as he braced himself for the darkness. But it didn't come. Instead, he saw Simmons coming. "Jemma?" He asked, looking strangely at her. "But you-you're gone."

She laughed, and he realized how much he had missed it. "I'm right here, Fitz. Come on, show me the lab. You must have made some changes to it while I was gone." She held out her hand, urging him to come with her.

"But I'm-" Fitz sat up and to his surprise, realized that his chest was better. There wasn't any pain anywhere, and his head felt clear for the first time in months. "I'd be happy to." He smiled, taking her hand. They ran through the halls, laughing, until they reached the lab. Their lab.

"Show me what you changed. I hope you didn't change my filing system."

"B for blue, for biological." Fitz laughed. "I didn't change a thing. I wouldn't dare to, not with you coming back." Jemma was laughing with him, they were working together in the lab. Everything finally felt right, like it had before his accident. His hands weren't shaking, and everything in his brain was clear. He wasn't stumbling over his words.

They were laughing so much, his chest began to hurt. It was hurting a lot, burning. Simmons was beginning to fade. He reached out to her, but his hands were beginning to shake, and he tripped. "Jemma? Where are you going?"

"I was never here, Fitz." She laughed, waving at him as she disappeared entirely. The only thing left now was his burning chest, his leg hurting, his head aching.

"Jemma, please!" He called after her. His eyes opened. He wasn't in the lab. Jemma wasn't there. He was alone again.

"Let me guess, this is where you say that you can't believe I would do something like this, and I'm a monster, and that you can't bear to look at me?" Ward asked, staring at the ceiling of his cell.

"Oh, actually I'm here to tell you that Fitz is alive, which means that not every bone in your body is broken." Daisy said, smiling sweetly. "Given your past record, I don't find it hard to believe that you would do that, though I can't think of why. Do you mind telling me?"

"Telling you why I kidnapped Fitz? I didn't, Yusef did that. I just-"

"I know exactly what you did, Ward. You recorded it for us, remember?" Daisy took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down. "But why?"

"Didn't May tell you what she did to Kara?" Ward asked, sitting up. "Did they tell you how she died?"

"I don't see what that has to do with anything, unless you're trying to convince me that you were justified in torturing Fitz."

"I didn't want to hurt Fitz. I wanted closure." Ward explained. "I knew that Coulson and May would come, and that would be my time to get the closure I need."

'You're even more disgusting than I thought you were." Daisy shook her head. "But why Fitz?"

"He was the easiest to get my hands on, what with half the Moroccan gang lords looking for him." Ward shrugged. "And the whole team has a soft spot for a poor, damaged engineer. They would drop everything and come running as soon as they knew he was in trouble."

Daisy bit her lip. "Right." _Except we didn't come right away, as soon as he went missing. We waited until it was too late._ Turning, she fled up the stairs.


	17. Trees

**A/N: This chapter is a little different, but everything will get explained later. Please review and let me know if you have suggestions.**

"He made it out of surgery, but that's all we're going to celebrate for now." The doctor was standing beside him, telling Coulson the current prognosis. And was that Daisy in the corner? What was she doing here? She didn't care. "He's underweight, severely dehydrated—"

"So what you're telling me is?" Coulson cut off the doctor, wanting to get directly to the point without playing around it.

"He's still in critical condition. He's been in in extreme pain since he woke up." The doctor picked up his clipboard, and prepared to leave. "Agent Fitz is not out of the woods yet."

They were right, about the pain. He needed something to keep himself off of it, or he was going to die, he knew that. Jemma. Where was Jemma? He closed his eyes, trying to recall her face.

"Fitz! Fiiitz!" It was Jemma calling him, from somewhere behind him. He turned around, looking for her. He had heard her voice, she must be there somewhere. Behind him was a forest, full of tall, dark trees. He was too far away to see if Jemma was there, but her voice called to him again, this time teasingly. "Oh, Fitz. Come here, silly boy." He broke out into a run, forgetting how much his chest and leg hurt, and how his lungs were aching and his head was splitting. The pain was fading into something comfortable, something that he hadn't felt since before his first accident. "Fitz!"

He ran faster, and then there, amongst the trees, he saw her. She was holding out her hand to him, wearing the same clothes she had worn the day that they were stuck on the bottom of the ocean. Was he going back in time?

"Come on, Fitz, take my hand." Jemma urged him, grabbing it herself. Her hand was cool, comforting. "You're burning up, Fitz. Are you all right?"

"A touch of fever, I think." Fitz told her. "From—"

"Oh, let's not talk about that, Fitz. Come on, we only have a little time." Jemma was pulling him deeper into the forest.

"Wait, Jemma, I'm not sure if we should-"

"Ugh, Fitz. Where is your sense of adventure?" Jemma asked him, giving him a coquettish smile.

"I don't want to do it. I don't like the unknown." Fitz reluctantly admitted, half expecting her to pull away from him.

Instead, she wrapped her arms around him. "Oh Fitz." She whispered into his chest. "You can't let Ward make you afraid of taking risks, or too scared to try something new. Adventures don't have to end badly. Besides, you're with me, not Ward."

Fitz could feel his eyes filling with tears. "How did you know what was in my head?"

"You're my best friend in the world. After all, we're psychically linked." Jemma reminded him.

"Hey now, that was something Skye said, and you weren't even there." Fitz defended himself. "How do you know what's in my head?"

"I'm in your head, Fitz. Of course I know." Jemma reminded him, and with that, a little piece of him died. Her arms wrapped around him felt a little less comforting, and more like a hallucination. "Come on, let's go deeper into the trees."

"But I should be coming out of the woods, not going deeper." Fitz argued with her. "Are you trying to hurt me, Jemma?" He pulled out of her embrace. "It's your fault, all of this. You're the one who brought me into the woods, you're the one trying to keep me from getting out. It's your fault I'm hurt."

"But Fitz, you're not hurt. You're with me." Jemma reminded him.

"No, I'm not. You're in my head, Jemma. You just told me that yourself. You're in my head, I'm not with you, I'm not with anybody."

"Oh, well that isn't a very nice thing to be saying about such old friends like us." Fitz's heart almost stopped as he heard Ward's voice. Turning around, he saw him strolling closer. "All by yourself, Fitz? I don't think so."

Fitz turned on Jemma. "You brought him here too?" He exclaimed, his voice breaking. "Jemm-" There was a sharp pain in his chest again, and he looked down to see a crimson stain spreading over his shirt. He looked up curiously at Ward, whose gun was still aimed at him. "Ward?" He asked, incredulously, as he collapsed to the ground. He was lying there now, his chest burning, and now he could feel his leg bleeding as well.

Ward was standing over him. "Come on, Fitz. You could join Hydra, be one of our greatest. It's only the matter of a few days before our doctors could heal you."

"Never." Fitz coughed out. Ward shook his head slowly, and put his hand over Fitz's neck, beginning to choke him. Fitz gasped for air, black beginning to tunnel into his vision. Then he felt Jemma's hand taking his, and the same cool comfort spread again. He opened his eyes, and she was there, pushing Ward away, and leaning over him.

"Fitz?" She asked, her voice and face filled with concern. The Jemma was fading now, no, that wasn't the right word. She was shifting, changing, and then it wasn't Jemma at all, it was Daisy. "Fitz? Can you see me, Fitz?"

Fitz looked up at her, the pain coming back. He couldn't tell if it was Jemma or Daisy now. But Ward had shot him and it was her fault, whoever she was.


	18. A Wakeup Call

"He's been having nightmares. He'll wake up in the middle of the night terrified, drenched in sweat, but he won't even try to talk about them. He just lies there until he falls asleep again, and then it repeats." Daisy reported to Coulson. "When he is awake, he won't talk to me either. It's just... silence. I already feel bad enough for letting him get to this point. But now he won't even let me help him recover. Sometimes I feel like he doesn't even recognize me."

"PTSD." Coulson said briefly. "Ward had him for almost a month. Considering what Ward did to him, it's a miracle he's still alive. And from Ward's tapes, Fitz didn't tell him anything, and repeatedly refused to work for him."

"God, I can't believe that we let this happen." Daisy said, her voice cracking. "I don't blame him for ignoring me."

Coulson nodded, not wanting to speak either. For a long moment, they sat across from each other at his desk. "So you never have any idea what he dreams about?"

Daisy shook her head. "He won't talk to me, or to anybody. He just stares at us, or at the ceiling. Like he's confused about where he is, though I've told him a million times that he's at the Playground, with the team, that he'll be okay."

"Maybe it's time to stop lying to him, then." Hunter remarked from the doorway, where he was leaning.

Daisy and Coulson's heads whipped to see him. "Hunter! What the hell are you doing there?" Coulson asked, startled.

"You told me to come up at 10:15. It's 10:15, here I am." Hunter said. "And to expound on what I just said, lying to Fitz about his recovery might be part of the reason he won't talk to you."

"Do you care to explain?" Daisy said sarcastically. "And while you're at it, why don't you tell me how to use my powers? I've been Fitz's friend much longer than you have- you can bet that he's not mad at me for doing an encouraging lie."

"Okay, sweetheart, enough with the sarcasm." Hunter said, shoving his hands into his pockets. "What I mean is, he's still Fitz. He's a bloody genius. He knows exactly what happened. Maybe he doesn't look it, but he can hear us, understand us, understand the doctors- he knows exactly what his condition is. So telling him that he'll be okay? Not helping him. Last time you told him that, his brain was damaged. Stop telling him that he'll be all right. Obviously, something's wrong. He's still in critical condition, and he can understand that. And there's one more thing, Daisy. Maybe you've known him longer than I have, but I don't think you understand him as much as I do right now. Look, I've talked to him. I've taken an interest in him, and I didn't drop it just because he wanted to get his best friend back from an alien planet. I know how he felt when he was recovering. Lonely. Depressed. Because you bloody well ignored him, and couldn't stop alternating between treating him like a child, or like a man beyond his capabilities. If you had talked to him more the past year, maybe you'd understand why he won't talk to you." Hunter suddenly realized how long he'd been talking for. "Sorry, sir. Do you want me to go?"

Coulson and Daisy were in a kind of stunned stillness. Coulson spoke first. "Sure, Hunter. Come back later, and I'll discuss what I wanted you to do."

As his footsteps died down the hallway, Daisy put her fist over her mouth to keep herself from crying. "I hadn't thought of it like that. He's right."


	19. Truth

**A/N: I haven't abandoned you, don't worry. I broke my arm earlier this month, and this chapter took a while to get to the place I want it in. Please R &R!**

Daisy was gone, leaving Fitz alone in his room. He was in a half-conscious sleep, fitfully waking up and then relaxing again. After Daisy and Coulson had left, Hunter came back to his friend's room, taking up Daisy's place in the chair beside his bed. It was a while before Fitz woke up again, but this time Hunter was there. "Hello mate. How are you feeling?"

Fitz stared at him with dull eyes, his head giving just the slightest shake.

"Having a hard time talking? Or you're not feeling well. Can I get you something?" Hunter asked, watching Fitz's face closely. Fitz's eyes flickered towards the end of his bed, where his chart was. Hunter followed his gaze, and picked it up, scanning it. "Well, I'm no doctor, mate, but let's see if I can get you anything to make you feel better. Medications, let's see, painkillers, you know I really should call Bobbi. She's the one who knows about this kind of- what the hell, FITZ!" Hunter looked up from his rambling to see Fitz staring straight up at the ceiling. His breathing was short and shallow, and his eyes were filled with terror. Hunter looked frantically around the room for something, anything that he could use to help Fitz. Finally he spotted the emergency oxygen mask, and placed over Fitz's face, starting the pump into his lungs. Slowly Fitz's body relaxed, and his breathing became less ragged. "I'm sorry about this, Fitz. I didn't know that that kind of thing was happening, you know?" Hunter took a deep breath to calm himself down before talking again. "You know, you've been a good friend. I've never met anybody who care so much about his friends as you do. Bloody hell, you'd die for your friends, you've proven that." Fitz blinked, a tear sliding down the side of his head from the corner of his eye. "Jemma would be proud of you. We're all proud of you. You've a bloody good friend, a good mate, and I don't know what I'd do if you didn't make it, so you'd better. I've lost enough people, and not to be selfish, but I don't want to lose another friend." Hunter removed the oxygen supplement, seeing that the heart rate on the monitor was steady again.

"Jemma-" Fitz's voice was low, so low that Hunter could barely hear it.

"Jemma?" Hunter asked him.

"Not just my friend." Fitz's face twisted as he tried to think of what he should say next. "Yusef- I told him- he knows- he asked me- he could see it-"

"See what, Fitz?"

"I-I love her." Fitz's tone confused Hunter. It wasn't a statement, more of a dawning realization. "I-I didn't do this- because she's my friend- because I love her."


	20. Reasoning

**A/N: My trip to outer space was very nice, thank you. I had a lovely time.**

 **Haha but I'm back now.**

"I had hoped that he was getting better." Coulson sighed as Hunter gave him the latest report.

"And he is doing better, physically. He talked to me for a little while, though it was hard- about Jemma." Hunter debated with himself if he could tell Coulson what Fitz had specifically said about Jemma.

"Jemma?"

"I think he's trying to cope. It's almost as if he feels guilty for having gotten hurt. He's trying to justify it to me, even though he doesn't need to." Hunter continued.

"Justify it? With Jemma?" Coulson prodded.

"Yeah. He said- he said that he loved her, and that's why everything happened. And then he zoned out for a little while, and then when he came back he wouldn't listen to me or believe a thing I said. He told me that I was just another bad dream, something else coming to torture him. And then Mack came in and he began doing this thing where it looked like he was screaming, but he didn't make any sound. Just wide eyes and the most horrifying expression I've ever seen. He babbled about Ward- said that 'we were a team' and 'you know what you're doing' 'stop this, please.' Practically had a panic attack until Mack left. And then he fell asleep and I came to talk to you about it."

"Damn it." Coulson said, rubbing his forehead with his good hand. "I don't know how I'm supposed to deal with this. We have new inhuman threats coming every day, and things are just going downhill here."

"Maybe if Simmons was here-"

"And how is that supposed to happen? It's not like I just interned her at Hydra. We don't even know where she is."

"I know, it sounds bloody impossible, but if we could figure out why Fitz was in Morocco, how he met this Yusef Hadad, maybe we could figure out how to get her back? And if she's here then maybe Fitz will get better."

"Morocco. That's it." Coulson stood up. "When he came back, I talked to him. That's what started all of this. I said we had to let her go, that I was going to Sheffield to talk to her dad. And he told me that he would, and then he went and attacked the monolith. And after that we didn't see him until Yusef contacted us."

"So he came back from Morocco, and you told him that we were done looking for Jemma." Hunter said. "Which drove him to attack the monolith, which led him to leave the base, and boom, Yusef."

"Exactly."

"Yusef must travel fast, if he got-"

"Hydra helped." Coulson said.

"But what prompted you to tell Fitz that we were done looking for Jemma?" Bobbi asked. Hunter jumped.

"Don't sneak up on a man like that, Bob." Hunter said, annoyed.

"He brought something back from Morocco." Coulson said. "It was a piece of paper that had Death written on it, in Hebrew."

"He told me that he was going to get something like that." Bobbi said. "Where is it now? Maybe if we show it to Fitz-"

"He could tell us how to get Jemma back." Hunter finished. "Bob, you're a bloody genius."


	21. Consequences

**A/N: So I really suck at updating things. Please R &R!**

Genius? Bobbi didn't think so. Showing Fitz the paper hadn't helped. She realized now what they had done. That paper- that's what had started this whole mess. That was what made him an enemy of Yusef Hadad. Coulson had told him to give up looking for Jemma after that paper. He had attacked the monolith after he ahd seen that paper. And then he had been kidnapped. She should have known that showing him the paper would have sent him spiraling back into the despair of losing the girl he loved. They all should have known.

They had returned to the lab, trying to decipher his last page of notes before he left. An emergency call from the nurse sent them sprinting back to the engineer's room. The doctor informed them that his heart had stopped only minutes after they had shown him the paper. The defibrillator had saved him, but could he please speak to them? Away from Agent Fitz?

Once outside the room, he elaborated. "I believe that Agent Fitz has lost the will to live." He said, soberly. "He is in a delicate condition, and I think that part of what kept him going was the hope that Miss Simmons would return. Whatever you said to him this afternoon, it seems to have shattered him. He is no longer trying."

"What did we do?" Daisy whispered, tears rolling down her cheeks as the doctor returned to the ICU. "How could we have done that to him?"

"We failed him. Again." Mack said. "Damn it."

"Wait-" Hunter said. He had been staring into the room where Fitz lay, but now he turned towards them. "I have another idea, but we can't tell Fitz."

"Some idea is better than nothing." Bobbi said. "Shoot."

"He needs Jemma. We know that. He needs Jemma. So we find her." Hunter said, excitedly. "If what the doctor said was right, then we only have a little time, so we have to work fast. I doubt that he'll let us close to Fitz after this, but we can still try to figure out what he was working on before he got that drink. Bob, you pulled him off of the monolith. He was excited about something, wasn't he?"

"Yeah." Bobbi said. "Dust. On his hand."

"He's a scientist. He should have a journal, something, somewhere that connects it more than that random bit on the paper, about castles and Asgard-" He snapped his fingers. "Asgard. We have a resident expert, don't we?"

Without a word, May left the room, only pausing for a second. "Wheels up in ten."


	22. Will

**A/N: Thank you to Riolu G. Hand for letting me know that there was a formatting error. Please review!**

"Fitz?" Jemma stood in the doorway of his hospital room, dressed in a pair of sweats borrowed from Daisy. Her clothes were packed up somewhere (which Coulson had apologized for a dozen times), and even if these were too big, they were gloriously comfortable. "Can he hear me?" She asked the nurse, her lip quivering. She turned to leave, bumping into Daisy. "I can't do this, I'm sorry, I just can't do this."

"Jemma?" Her name was long, drawn out, half-whispered with the feeble voice of somebody who has been sick for a long time.

Simmons whirled around. She couldn't back out now. Slowly she moved across the room until she was standing awkwardly beside his bed. "Hi Fitz." His eyelids were fluttering as she reached her shaking hand out to touch his emaciated one. "It's me." She looked back over her shoulder, tears rolling down her cheeks. "I can't." She whispered again. "I can't."

"He needs you." Daisy said, "You have to do this for him."

Fitz's hand shook as he lifted it just enough to let his fingers trace over the skin on Jemma's hand. "Real?"

"She's really here, Fitz." Daisy told him, whispering to Jemma, "Hold his hand."

Jemma knelt beside his bed, holding his hand in both of hers. "I'm here, Fitz," she whispered, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

The look of blissful satisfaction on Fitz's face was worth the nosebleed, Daisy decided. It was even worth the splitting headache that she had been dealing with for hours. But what was wrong with Jemma?

She barely talked until Fitz drifted off to sleep, at which point Daisy herded her out of the room. "Jemma, what's going on?"

Jemma's face was stained with tears. "I can't do this to him."

"What are you talking about, Jemma?" Daisy asked. "You're not doing anything to him. Did you see how happy he was when you came in?"

"That's what I can't do to him." Jemma said. "I can't lie to him, Skye."

Daisy chose to ignore Jemma calling her by the wrong name. The girl had just gotten back, how was she to know? "What are you lying about, Simmons? I thought you two- you were going out on a date, what are you lying to him about?"

Simmons looked up at her, her eyes filling with tears. "Will."


	23. Nightmares and Hallucinations

**A/N: Nice cheery chapter title we have there. I'm hoping to finish this by the end of the month (if I keep writing steadily). Please review!**

The nightmares woke her up. It was her first night at home, her first night on Earth in who knows how many days, and she couldn't sleep.

She couldn't remember what woke her up, only that she was awake, and holding out her knife in front of her. Her cabin seemed menacing now. Every shadow reminded her of It, and every motion made her fear the monster that had haunted her until now.

She sat up for a few minutes, trying to fall asleep. Finally, she got up. Opening her door, she found the dimmed lights in the hallway comforting. The path was too familiar to her, from her room to the ICU.

No matter how much she missed Will, no matter how badly she felt about deceiving Fitz, he was Fitz.

He was sleeping, of course. The tubes and wires sprouting off of him took her back at first. There was a moment of déjà vu, back two years, back to when he was in a coma for nine days. It all seemed so similar.

The night nurse just smiled and nodded as Jemma stepped softly into Fitz's room. Walking to the side of his bed, she unlatched the plastic side, and let it drop gently. Swinging her legs up, she squeezed herself into the margin of space between Fitz and the edge of the bed. The regular sound of his breathing comforted her, and she allowed herself to lean her head against his shoulder just a little bit.

The doctor in her protested, but it had been so long since Jemma had been one that she found the voice easy to ignore. As she curled against Fitz's side, she gently picked up his hand, holding it between two of her own, clip on his finger and all.

Finally, Jemma slept.

"Excuse me, Agent Simmons." The doctor was smiling down at her. Jemma stirred stiffly. Where was she? "Agent Simmons? I need to get in here."

Jemma suddenly realized where she was, and flushed. She had spent the night sleeping next to Fitz, and she had been caught. In the ICU, of all places? What had she been thinking?

She slid out of the bed quickly, attempt to straighten her wrinkled sweatshirt. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to cause you any inconvenience." Jemma said, leaving the room as hastily as possible. Daisy was standing in the doorway, smiling widely.

"Jemma." She said, "Aren't you even going to say good morning to Fitz?"

Jemma whirled around. Sure enough, Fitz's eyes were wide open, his face creased into a blissful smile. "Good morning, Fitz." She said quickly, bolting from the area as soon as possible.

Fitz almost laughed. "She came back." His obvious pleasure was child-like. "She came back."

"You're right." Daisy said. "She came back. I think you really helped her last night."

"I watched." Fitz said, eagerly. The struggle to pick his next words was painfully evident to Daisy, but she forced herself to keep the same expression. Of course he would recognize the return of his symptoms, and she didn't want to be the one to remind him. "Jemma. She came last night. She, she, uh, thought that I was asleep. But she fell asleep, and then I watched her."

Daisy smiled warmly. "It's good to have you back, Fitz. It's good to have both of you back."

"Daisy-" Fitz's face had suddenly changed. The light had faded, and he put his head back against the pillow, obviously exhausted.

"What is it, Fitz?"

"Jemma. The uh, hallucination."

"She's really here, Fitz." Daisy reminded him. "You didn't imagine it."

"No." Fitz said, "I see her now."


	24. A Rock and a Hard Place

"So what are we going to do?" Daisy asked after pulling the doctor aside in the hallway and explaining Fitz's new symptoms.

"Unfortunately, I don't think there is anything we can do about that." The doctor sighed.

"That can't be right. We have to be able to do something."

"The human brain is complicated. Agent Fitz made an incredible recovery from his original injury, but I couldn't tell you how to repeat that. It's just going to take time."

"He's already lost so much of his life because of this." Daisy said, "And now he's back to square zero?"

"It's hard to tell." The doctor repeated. "It will just take time."

"Time? He doesn't have any more time. You said yourself last week, he's lost the will to live. Simmons is back, and maybe that will help, but he knows that something is wrong. He knows exactly what is going on, and it's going to rip him up." Daisy argued. "Please think of something to do."

"All we can do is get him back into the best physical condition we can. The brain may resolve itself in time. It did before, and it could again."

"And if it doesn't resolve itself?" Daisy asked, "What happens then? He just has to live like this?"

"I am afraid so." The doctor said, continuing, "There is one thing. It is possible that the torture he went through did not cause further injury to his brain. We can hope that it only flared the symptoms again. Again, there is only so much we can do. It will just take time."

"Right. Time." Daisy said. "There's not anything I can do in the meantime to help?"

"Don't treat him like a child." The doctor said, "But don't ignore that he has a problem. Let him talk to you, if he wants, and if not, just be there for him. And don't insult him by offering help with simple tasks. Give him something to distract himself from the months he is facing in recovery and rehab."

"Thank you." Daisy said, "I just can't stand feeling useless."

"Perhaps," the doctor said as he walked away, "Perhaps that can help you understand how he feels."

"Simmons?" Daisy said, "Knock knock."

Simmons looked up from the ipad on her lap. "Come in, Daisy."

"Simmons, would you please come talk to Fitz? He's having a rough time of it right now, and I think it might help if you were there." Daisy said. She still had not told Jemma about the reappearance of Fitz's aphasia but Fitz really was upset.

"I told you, Daisy, I don't want to lie to him." Simmons said. "I've told you about Will. Do you think that I can go there and talk to him and pretend that I haven't-" She paused, took a deep breath, and continued, "It's wrong, Daisy."

"No, no it's not." Daisy protested, "Look, you aren't lying to him. You are going to talk to him about it later, but right now he needs you, Jemma. He needs all of us right now."

"I don't think I can help." Jemma repeated, "He thinks that everything is the same as it was when I left. He's madly in love, Daisy, and I don't know if I feel that way towards him. He got himself into all of this because of me, and I don't know if I love him back. I can't do it, Daisy. When I see him I feel guilty for letting him go through all of this, and then with Will- I'm not going to see him."

"Please, Jemma, please!" Daisy said, "He needs you right now. Talk to him about this when he's out of the ICU, for Pete's sake, but give him something. Even if you aren't in love with him, do it for the kid you met at the Academy. Do it for the genius who saved your life at the bottom of the ocean. Do it for everything you two went through last year when he was recovering. Do it for the past, if not for the future. If you don't, Jemma, I think it might destroy him."


	25. A Lesson in Avoidance

**Trigger Warning: Depression, allusion to a failed suicide attempt (non-graphic)**

 **A/N: So obviously we've skipped a little time from the last chapter to this one.**

 **I'll try to update more frequently, but no promises. School is busy.**

" _We gather here today to honor the life of Leopold Fitz." The priest had known Leo since he was a boy. He had baptized him into his mother's church, counselled them through the tough years with Leo's father, and then watched as the boy fled from the country, barely looking back. Now he stood at the front of the chapel, prepared to give a final blessing over the tired body of Leopold Fitz._

" _His life was too short. No mother should have to bury her son." She sat on the front row, her face frozen into a mask of grief. "But nobody can deny the impact he had. You may have heard of his exploits as an engineer, but that wasn't the most remarkable thing about Leo. He was an optimist, always believing the best of situations and people. He was always willing to forgive, always willing to try again. He was a remarkable man, and it was a privilege to help shepherd him throughout his childhood. We will not easily forget the impact he made on our lives." Mrs. Fitz and her few friends nodded. They were the only congregants in the chapel._

 _A voice interrupted the service from the back of the chapel. "If nobody is going to forget, why aren't his friends here? The people he died for?" The priest froze. Leopold's father strode to the front of the church. "He was never anything special. Nobody's going to remember him. He wasn't extraordinary, he was just a nerdy kid who didn't know what was good for him. It's his own fault he died the way he did. He cared too much about people who never gave a crap about him. He thought he meant something to them, but they didn't even bother to show up to his funeral. And do you want to know why? Because Leo Fitz was never anything special. You can sit here and pretend to mourn, or you can speak the truth and talk about him for who he really was- a moron."_

 _Nobody spoke up in his defense. Nobody said a word._

" _If he really meant so much to these SHIELD people, where are they? Where are they?" He began to laugh. "I'll tell you where they are. They're out celebrating. They're rejoicing because the burden is finally off their shoulders. They don't have to pretend that they care for him anymore. Come on, Mother, I know you don't really care. What did Leo ever do for you besides run off to the States before he was old enough to drink? And you, you neighbors. Why are you here? You never spoke to him besides trivial interactions. What kind of impact does a teenage recluse make on you? None, that's what. None. That boy thought he was extraordinary, but do you want to know the truth? He was nothing more than a gullible lunatic. And Jemma knew that."_

 _Gullible lunatic._

 _Gullible lunatic._

 _Jemma knew that._

"Fitz?" That was Coulson's voice waking him out of his dream. "Fitz, Dr. Garner's here. He'd like to talk to you."

Fitz looked up blankly. "What for?"

Dr. Garner didn't seem to understand his hostility. "Hello, Agent Fitz. It's good to see you." Why was he lying? "How have you been feeling lately?"

"Look at my chart." Fitz noticed that Coulson had left the room. Celebrating already? He wasn't dead yet.

"You know that that's not what I mean, Fitz." Dr. Garner smiled jovially. Did Fitz know what he meant? Did Dr. Garner think this was a joke? He didn't want to talk.

"Oh yeah?" That should tip him off.

"Daisy said that you've been having trouble sleeping. Are you taking your medications?"

No. Of course he wasn't. Sleeping meant nightmares. Nightmares where nobody cared. Nightmares were hard to reason with. There wasn't logic with nightmares, only frightening images of a disturbing but not irrational reality. His pills were in the pocket of his robe. They flushed easily down the toilet. "Yeah."

"We're only trying to help you, Fitz." Dr. Garner seemed annoyed now. Maybe he would leave. He didn't want to talk today. Maybe some other day, but not today. Not after a nightmare. There was no logic for his nightmares. There was no psychology to help with the nightmares. The nightmares were his problem to deal with. And he wasn't going to deal with them today.

"We?" Fitz asked, "So where's Jemma then?"

Dr. Garner knew what that meant. Of course he did. Dr. Garner had personally kept an eye on Fitz for the first few days after he had done It, and he knew why Fitz had done It. Dr. Garner would have to stop joking around now. "Have you talked to Jemma yet?"

"No. Haven't even seen her since the first day and that was only for a moment." A tearstained face appearing over the side of the bed. An apology. A goodbye. None of it had been clear through the haze of the aftermath of It. "Besides, what's to talk about?"

"You can't ignore your problem, Fitz. Talking to Jemma might resolve some things for you, and give you some peace. Some closure."

He didn't want to talk about It. "I'm peaceful. I'm better."

Dr. Garner stood up. He was leaving. "We'll talk more when you're feeling better."

"Why? I don't have anything to say." Fitz muttered as Dr. Garner stepped out of the room.

Daisy was standing outside, behind the glass. He could see Dr. Garner talking to her. She was shaking her head. Her hand rose to her face. Were those tears?

Guilt rose inside of him. How many people was he hurting now? They cared. The nightmares were lying. He knew that he shouldn't have done It. He knew that he had hurt them. Had he really wanted to? He couldn't remember exactly. It was still fuzzy, trying to piece together the memories from that night. Jemma had come into his room, wrapping herself into a SHIELD issue robe. Hiding in it. He had been exhausted from physical therapy, but elated at the idea of seeing her. She had sat down next to him and told him about the alien planet, about what had happened there. About Will, the man she had fallen in love with. She had been tearful, timid. She had begged him not to take it too hard. He had pretended to understand, told her that it was okay. She left. He fell apart. That was when it got fuzzy. He remembered every detail of what she had said, every word of it. The thoughts he had had while she told him. Daisy had come in at some point, and asked if he was okay. He had said yes, he just needed to be alone. She left. Then came the slow change from anger to despair. Everything intensified, the lights, the noise. But mostly the pain. The pain was the worst. He had fought through it before because it was worth it. For Jemma, it was worth it. She was a reason to keep fighting every day. And then she wasn't, and it didn't feel worth it anymore. His dinner had been on the bedside table, utensils untouched. There was more pain. There was darkness. There was light. Questions. More pain. Fuzz. Stitches. Bandages.

There were still bandages on his wrists. He was almost never alone. At the very least, somebody would check on him every half hour.

He wasn't going to try again. He regretted it the morning after, when he woke up with bandages on his wrists, an IV in his elbow and restraints keeping him from moving around. There had been lots of light in the first days. They would dim them for him to sleep, but he had no control over them.

Dr. Garner had been in there a lot. Daisy had stood at the doorway but she wouldn't come in. There had been lots of tears from her.

It had been a week, he thought, and yet she was still crying. Dr. Garner had said he should talk about it, but he didn't want to go back to it. It had been a mistake. He knew that he had reasons to live beyond Jemma, if only to prove Ward wrong. He hadn't been thinking then, and he wanted to say he was sorry, he just didn't know how. It was easier to avoid the topic altogether.

It was easier to avoid everything right now. Avoid the nightmares, avoid talking about it. Avoid facing himself.


End file.
